Trump banning Fortnite in the United States could spell doom for the 100-man Battle Royale game

Recently, we talked about the US Government's plan to issue a ban on various Chinese owned apps such as TikTok and WeChat. The company that owns TikTok - Bytedance, has moved quickly in an attempt to get the ban overturned. The company is in talks to establish an alternate corporation by the name of ‘TikTok Global’, to alleviate concerns raised by various countries about national security. However, rumors suggest that Fortnite could be next on the list!

WeChat is owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which is widely considered to be the biggest gaming company in the world. Tencent has its fingers dipped in various industries across the globe, including entertainment, artificial intelligence, and technology, in addition to gaming. Among its long list of assets, is Epic Games - a company in which Tencent holds a 40% stake. Unsurprisingly, the US governement's previous decision to ban all transactions on WeChat and TikTok resulted in widespread panic among Fortnite gamers.

Image Credits: Esports Observer

This reaction was largely down to the text used in the order, which said that all transactions involving Tencent were being banned, which inadvertently included Fortnite as well. However, much to the gamers' relief, it was later confirmed that the ban wouldn't be affecting Fortnite.

Trump is (probably unknowningly) trying to ban Fortnite, and League of Legends, by preventing any Tencent operations in the US. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see this one coming.

— Alanah Pearce (@Charalanahzard) August 7, 2020

Trump banning Fortnite in the United States could spell bad news for the 100-man Battle Royale game

Now however, various sources have reported that both League of Legends and Fortnite may be at risk. With Fortnite especially, a ban in the US could prove to be extremely calamitous. As reported earlier, it's ban on the Google and Apple app stores resulted in a 69% increase in the week-on-week revenue of COD: Mobile.

Furthermore, according to Business Of Apps, 42% of the total Battle Royale gamers in the US remain loyal exclusively to Fortnite. Around 79% of the entire demographic play Fortnite, albeit as part of a combination of two, or even three of the more popular Battle Royale games in the US. These include Apex Legends and PUBG as well.

Image Credits: BusinessofApps

Fortnite has, for a long time, been the number one Battle Royale game in the US, and losing its biggest source of revenue would undoubtedly lead to the game itself getting heavily devalued.

Trump Admin gonna ban Fortnite now ... lmao but if it does go through I need my money back 😬

— Spartan (@SpartanArmy_) September 19, 2020

Image Credits: Twitter

On the other hand, the US government may find that it is has fallen down a rabbit-hole if they decide to start banning all of Tencent’s offerings. As already mentioned, Tencent has various important assets in the gaming industry, and banning them all would lead to an ‘Epic’ transformation of the US gaming scene.